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How to Have a Blast and Learn Something,
Too!Educational Activities with Plastic Soda Bottlesby
Rachel Keller

Stop! Don’t throw out or recycle that empty soda bottle until you let
your children have some creative fun with any of the following fabulous
science experiments and educational activities. Whether you homeschool or your
children attend a traditional school, you will want to try some of these
experiments. The following collection of more than 20 links and ideas have
activities for all age groups–from preschool through high school. (Even
adults will enjoy many of these experiments.) More...

If your family doesn’t drink
sodas (like ours), collect empty bottles from your next picnic or from friends
or neighbors who do drink sodas.

1. Have you ever made a homemade tornado? Well, you can with two
plastic soda bottles and some other simple items. Here are several
websites that show you how to perform this fun experiment while teaching
your children about weather, vortex, and tornados.

2. Now, that you’ve tried the tornado, you will want to experience
this rather exciting explosion. You need to do this experiment outside,
and you will need a full bottle of diet cola rather than an empty one.

Make your own diet soda fountain or eruption using one box of fruit
Mentos candy and one 2-liter diet cola. Either buy an inexpensive metal
cylinder or roll a glossy magazine paper into a cylinder slightly larger
than the round candy. (You will want the candies to slide out all at
once.) Hold them in with your finger, and then let them all drop into the
bottle at once. Get ready for a blast! See if your children can determine
what causes the soda to erupt. Here are some videos for you to see the
eruption.

3. The following link has a terrific picture of the tornado in a
bottle as well as slightly different instructions for dropping the Mentos
candies into the cola bottle. You will need to scroll to the bottom of the
page to find these two experiments. However, you will also enjoy reading
the excellent summaries and descriptions about the other experiments.

4. You won’t want to miss this website! Take time to watch some of
the videos and read about simple experiments that demonstrate scientific
principles. You can even sign up for the science experiment of the week.
The following link features an experiment illustrating states of matter
and density by using a 2-liter bottle and medicine dropper. This
fascinating experiment is a terrific way to explore why things float or
sink.

7. The following experiment demonstrates that energy from the sun can
be collected and stored in many ways. You will need two bottles–one
painted white and one black–as well as two balloons. If you don’t have
soda bottles, try plastic milk or juice bottles.

11. Create your own musical bottles. Collect as many soda bottles as
you wish, and fill them with various levels of water. Blow across the top
to make music. The higher the water volume, the higher the sound. (In high
school, our choir performed a song with various bottles. The lowest notes
were made with soda bottles.)

12. Do you know how to blow up a balloon using dry ice? Collect some
dry ice, plastic soda bottles, and balloons to try this experiment.

14. The following experiment is great for middle school and high school
students to explore how environmental features like light and volume of
air influence growth in mung bean sprouts. Have your student make
predictions about the relationship between growth and environment and then
test their predictions by growing sprouts in various sized plastic soda
bottles.

15. Create a biosphere in a bottle to explore some of the factors that
determine where bacteria can live. This is a long-term experiment as it
takes three to four weeks for bacteria to grow before you can get full
results.

17. Investigate the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in different
beverages and how much can be released at different temperatures. You may
just want to read about this one unless you have a good digital scale.

18. This chemical reaction powered car can be done at home or in the
classroom in as much detail and time as you would like to spend. This is
definitely an inquiry-based experiment, and the combination of engineering
design/build and chemistry makes it attractive to both boys and girls of
all ages.

19. The following experiment is very involved and is geared for a large
classroom. Students create a town with all the elements to sustain human
life to help them understand the definition, types and origins of the
major greenhouse gases.

21. Explore the sense of sound by using plastic soda or juice bottles
and various small items, such as dry seeds, beans, rice or pebbles or
sand. Secure the lid tightly before shaking to prevent the items from
flying out of the bottle. Decorate the container if you wish. Compare the
sounds made by the different materials.

22. Use your homemade sound shakers to play a guessing game. Have
people guess what is inside just by listening to the noise your shaker
makes.

23. Make a homemade bowling game with soda bottles. Add some sand or
rice and glue the caps on to prevent spills.

24. Cut the tops of soda bottles to make homemade funnels for small
children to play with in the bathtub (or use the funnels yourself).

Do you have other great experiments, fun activities, or game ideas using
empty soda bottles? If so, we would love to see them.

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